Oak  Street 
UNCLASSIFIED 


Mm^. 


Vol.  VIII  JULY- SEPTEMBER.  1922  Number  4 

Published  by  Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College 
ISSUED  QUARTERLY 


BULLETIN  OF 

RANDOLPH-MACON 
WOMAN'S  COLLEGE 


LYNCHBURG.  VA. 


m 


LlSllli 


rii 


THREE  EXPERIMENTAL  STUDIES 
IN  PSYCHOLOGY 

Conducted  and  Edited  by 

Professor  L.  R.  GEISSLER,  Ph.  D. 


tUifli#5 


Entered  as  second-class  matter  January  5,   1913,  at  the  postoffice  at  Lynchburg,  Virginia, 
under  the  Act  of  August  24,  1912. 


BULLETIN 

OF 


RANDOLPH -MACON 
WOMAN'S  COLLEGE 


THREE  EXPERIMENTAL  STUDIES 
IN  PSYCHOLOGY 

Conducted  and  Edited  by 

Professor  L.  R.  GEISSLER.  Ph.  D. 


Published  by 

RANDOLPH-MACON  WOMAN'S  COLLEGE 
LYNCHBURG,  VIRGINIA 


Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arcliive 
in  2013 


http://archive.org/details/threeexperimentaOOgeis 


Three  Experimental  Studies  in  Psychology" 

Conducted  and  Edited  by  DR.  L.  R.  GEISSLER 


I.— THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  THE  HUMAN  FACE 
•  FROM  PHOTOGRAPHS 

Dorothy  V.  Pope,  '22,  Experimenter 

It  is  frequently  observed  in  hearing  or  reading  accounts  of  a 
public  gathering  that  the  audience  is  referred  to  as  "intelligent 
looking."  Again,  one  often  hears  persons  described  as  having 
an  ''intelligent  looking  face"  or  as  being  "musical  looking," 
"artistic  looking,"  "literary  looking,"  "scientific  looking,"  or 
as  having  an  "honest,  open  countenance"  or  as  "mean  look- 
ing," and  the  like.  The  question  then  arises:  To  what  extent 
is  it  possible  to  judge  a  person's  traits  from  a  study  of  his  facial 
features?  Is  it  possible  to  find  any  positive  correlation  between 
the  face  and  the  talents  of  a  stranger?  The  present  study  was 
undertaken  with  such  questions  as  these  in  mind,  and  in  par- 
ticular we  wished  to  find  out  whether  the  interpretation  of  the 
human  face  from  photographs  is  accomplished  by  the  average 
intelligent  person  as  easily  as  by  one  trained  in  judging  intel- 
lectual achievement  and  interpreting  faces,  and  whether  such 
factors  as  the  sex  or  age  of  the  judge  have  any  effect  upon  the 
judgment  or  interpretation. 

Our  problem  is  neither  new  nor  original,  for  the  science  of 
physiognomy  has  for  centuries  been  concerned  with  discovering 
the  relations  between  the  human  mind  and  its  outward  expres- 
sion. This  science,  which  seems  to  be  as  old  as  occidental  civili- 
zation, has  had  in  its  development  an  alternation  between  pe- 
riods of  being  in  favor  and  periods  of  being  in  disrepute;  but 
the  fact  that  age  can  neither  exhaust  nor  destroy  its  possibilities 
forces  us  to  believe  that  its  problems  are  worthy  of  further  at- 
tention and  study. 

The  first  systematic  effort  to  collect  the  facts  concerning  the 
relation  between  mental  traits  and  facial  features  is  attributed, 
whether  rightly  or  wrongly,  to  Aristotle,  in  the  fourth  century 
B.  C.  He  enumerated  three  principles  of  analogy,  by  means  of 
which  the  relation  is  to  be  studied.    The  first  one  tries  to  draw 


4  Bulletin 

a  parallel  between  the  features  of  certain  animals  and  their 
most  distinctive  characteristics  and  assumes  that  human  beings 
exhibiting  similar  features  will  possess  the  corresponding  ani- 
mal characteristics.  The  second  principle  applies  in  a  like  man- 
ner to  the  distinctive  characteristics  and  features  of  different 
human  races,  while  the  third  principle  makes  use  of  the  faces, 
drawings,  paintings,  or  busts  of  the  most  prominent  personages 
known  to  his  time. 

Early  Christianity  scorned  any  study  of  the  sinful  flesh  and 
physiognomy  fell  into  discredit,  to  be  revived  by  Leonardo  da 
Vinci,  who  wrote  several  treatises  on  it  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury and  also  utilized  its  facts  and  principles  in  re-establishing 
the  art  of  portrait-painting.  During  the  17th  century  physiog- 
nomy again  fell  into  disfavor,  due  to  the  fact  that  it  became 
associated  with  the  pseudo-sciences  of  the  day.  But  in  the  18th 
century  Lavater,  an  influential  preacher  from  Zurich,  in  Switzer- 
land, brought  about  a  revival  of  interest  in  the  subject.  Schiller 
and  Goethe  were  both  deeply  interested  in  it  and  wrote  essays 
upon  the  relation  of  features  to  traits  of  character.  About  the 
same  time  the  anatomist  Camper  in  Holland  was  attempting  to 
prove  that  intelligence  was  indicated  by  an  angle  formed  by  tw^o 
lines,  the  one  from  the  ear  to  the  base  of  the  nose,  the  other 
tangential  to  upper  teeth  and  forehead.  It  has  since  been  proven, 
however,  that  Camper's  angle  is  of  no  importance  psycho- 
logically. In  the  nineteenth  century  interest  in  physiognomy 
centered  in  mimicry  in  particular.  Here  w^e  find  Deschenne 
experimenting  upon  facial  movements  as  stimulated  by  elec- 
tricity, Lombroso  studying  the  features  of  criminals  and  genius, 
while  Darwin  published  an  important  work  on  "The  Expression 
of  the  Emotions  in  Man  and  Animals." 

Today  the  interest  in  physiognomy  is  probably  more  wide- 
spread than  at  any  previous  period,  perhaps  partly  due  to  the 
rapid  advances  made  in  photography.  Employers  and  employ- 
ment-managers desire  either  personal  interviews  or  at  least  a 
photograph  of  the  applicant.  Phrenologists,  palmists,  and  other 
types  of  pseudo-scientific  character-readers,  including  the  pro- 
fessional interpreters  of  handwriting  and  photographs,  are  pros- 
pering everywhere  by  taking  advantage  of  the  popular  interest 
in  character-study.  Yet  at  the  same  time  we  find  serious- 
minded  persons  with  scientific  curiosity  demanding  or  attempt- 


Randolpii-Macon  Woman's  College  5 

ing  a  true  scientific  solution  of  the  age-old  question  concerning 
character-traits  and  their  outward  expression,  and  psychology, 
the  study  of  mental  life  par  excellence,  can  no  longer  maintain 
an  academic  aloofness  towards  such  questions  as  these:  Is  there 
any  relation  between  the  seen  and  the  unseen?  Do  outward 
signs  reveal  the  characteristics  of  the  inner  life?  If  there  is  a 
relation,  how  far  does  it  extend?  Does  it  involve  only  the  fleet- 
ing expressions  or  are  the  static  features  of  a  person  also  in- 
dicative of  certain  inner  traits?  Can  some  persons  judge  better 
than  others  by  facial  expressions?  Does  the  possession  of  a 
trait  make  one  a  better  or  worse  judge  of  the  same  trait  in 
'Others?  Is  it  possible  to  train  one's  self  in  judging  others  by 
their  facial  expressions?  Are  persons  of  one  sex  or  of  one  age 
better  or  worse  judges  of  the  same  or  of  the  opposite  sex  or  of 
some  different  age? 

In  our  experiment  we  have  attempted  to  throw  light  on  only 
a  few  of  these  questions.  We  desired  to  ascertain  whether  or 
not  the  casual  observer  has  any  basis  upon  which  to  form  a 
judgment  of  other  person's  intelligence  from  their  photographs, 
whether  experience  in  judging  intellectual  progress  renders 
one 's  judgment  in  facial  expression  more  correct  or  not,  whether 
or  not  a  person  is  judged  best  by  others  of  his  own  age  or  sex, 
and  whether  or  not  some  particular  traits,  like  musical,  artistic, 
literary,  or  scientific  talent  are  revealed  more  definitely  than 
mere  general  intelligence  in  one's  facial  expression.  We  are  well 
aware  of  other  experimental  studies  along  some  of  these  lines, 
for  instance,  by  Hollingworth  of  Columbia  University,  Pintner 
at  Ohio  State  University,  and  most  recently  Anderson  of  Car- 
negie Institute  of  Technology,  Pittsburgh,  but  space  forbids  us 
to  give  here  a  summary  of  their  results,  especially  as  they  do 
not  contradict  our  own  findings  where  they  meet  on  common 
ground. 

Since  it  seemed  desirable  for  our  purposes  to  have  as 
nearly  uniform  and  constant  material  for  judgment  as  is  pos- 
sible to  obtain,  we  selected  fifty  photographs  of  members  of  a 
former  graduating  class  of  Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College 
who  were  of  approximately  the  same  age  as  the  majority  of  our 
judges.  Another  uniformity  was  the  fact  that  all  fifty  wore  the 
academic  cap  and  gown.  Furthermore,  we  eliminated  from  the 
whole  class  all  pictures  giving  near  or  full  profile  views.  All  pic- 


6  Bulletin' 

turcs  were  also  of  the  same  size,  namely  l%x2V2  inches,  and  rep- 
resented approximately  bust-length.  These  pictures  were  mounted 
on  a  grey  cardboard  and  the  whole  enclosed  in  a  frame  under 
glass,  about  20x25  inches.  The  photographs  were  arranged  equi- 
distant from  each  other,  in  six  rows  of  nine  each,  except  the 
first  and  last  row,  which  had  only  seven,  thus  leaving  the  cor- 
ners free.  These  pictures  had  been  cut  from  the  class  annual 
and  were  printed  on  uniform  paper.  The  collegiate  records  of 
these  fifty  graduates  were  available  for  the  whole  four  years  of 
their  college  work,  besides  many  other  items  of  information  con- 
cerning their  non-scholastic   activities. 

The  subjects  who  were  to  serve  as  judges  of  these  photo- 
graphs were  forty  students  of  the  same  college,  five  members  of 
the  college  faculty,  only  one  of  whom  was  a  man,  and  five  mem- 
bers of  the  administrative  staff.  Besides  these  fifty,  all  of  whom 
were  unacquainted  with  the  former  graduates,  three  others 
served  as  judges  who  had  been  acquainted  with  the  majority  of 
the  former  class,  namely  a  professor,  a  student  and  a  staff- 
member.  The  experimenter  takes  this  opportunity  to  thank  each 
and  all  of  these  judges,  whose  faithful  work  has  contributed 
much  to  whatever  success  this  study  may  have  attained. 

The  traits  to  which  the  experiment  was  confined  were  general 
intelligence,  as  represented  by  scholastic  records,  musical  ability, 
literary  ability,  artistic  ability,  scientific  ability,  besides  neu- 
trality or  absence  of  pre-eminence  in  any  of  these  traits.  The 
test  was  given  to  each  of  the  53  subjects  individually,  and  in 
no  case  occupied  more  than  45  minutes. 

The  subject  was  seated  at  a  table  beside  a  window  and  given 
the  following  instructions  to  read : 

''This  is  an  experiment  in  the  psychological  study  of  facial 
types.  It  is  our  problem  to  ascertain  to  what  extent  persons 
agree  in  their  interpretation  of  photographs.  You  will  be  shown 
a  group  of  fifty  photographs  of  members  of  a  former  gradu- 
ating class  of  R.  M.  W.  C. 

1.  Examine  carefully  the  whole  group  and  then  try  to  deter- 
mine the  photograph  which  indicates  to  you  the  highest  type  of 
intelligence  as  usually  measured  by  the  best  scholastic  record. 
Place  on  this  i)hotograph  the  small  white  cardboard  labelled 
No.  ]. 


RANDor.Pii-MAcoN  Woman's  College  7 

2.  In  the  same  way  select  from  the  remaining  photographs  the 
one  most  intelligent  looking  face  and  place  upon  it  card  No.  2. 

3.  In  this  way  proceed  until  all  pictures  are  numbered  from  1 
to  50.  After  your  ranking  has  been  recorded  all  cards  will  be 
removed  and  you  are  to  study  the  faces  again  in  order  to  look 
for  various  other  types  of  ability. 

4.  Determine  which  of  the  faces  appears  to  you  to  indicate  the 
highest  type  of  musical  ability.  Place  upon  it  the  small  card 
No.  1.  Then  look  for  the  next  highest  type  and  cover  it  with 
card  No.  2.  In  the  same  way  select  the  photograph  to  be  labelled 
No.  3. 

5.  After  these  three  cards  have  been  removed,  proceed  in  a 
similar  way  to  determine  the  three  highest  types  of  literary 
ability. 

6.  Do  likewise  wath  the  ability  in  the  art  of  painting. 

7.  Proeeed  in  the  same  way  to  determine  scientific  ability. 

8.  Finally,  select  three  faces  which  appear  to  you  to  be  most 
neutral,  that  is,  not  expressing  any  kind  of  special  ability  or 
talent. 

9.  Fill  out  the  items  called  for  on  the  back  of  your  Result- 
Sheet. 

10.  Please  do  not  discuss  the  nature  of  this  experiment  with 
anybody,  as  this  might  disqualify  others  from  participating  in 
this  experiment,  in  other  words,  please  pledge  yourself  to 
silence  in  this  respect." 

It  can  be  seen  from  these  instructions  that  only  the  minimum 
amount  of  information  was  given  to  the  judges,  in  order  to 
eliminate  the  possibility  of  suggestion.  When  the  subject  had 
finished  the  reading  of  these  instructions,  the  picture-chart  was 
placed  on  the  table  before  him  and  he  was  given  the  small  cards 
bearing  the  numbers  from  1  to  50.  As  soon  as  each  set  of  rank- 
ing was  completed,  the  experimenter  recorded  the  results  upon 
a  special  blank  form  containing  50  rectangles  arranged  like  the 
chart,  and  also  three  columns  for  the  three  highest  ranks  in  the 
five  special  abilities.  On  the  back  of  these  result-sheets  a  num- 
ber of  questions  appeared  which  each  judge  was  asked  to 
answer.    They  were  as  follows: 


8  Bulletin 

].  Name:  2.  College  class  :  3.  Age: 

4.  Vocation  or  major  study  : 

5.  Special  interest  in  such  subjects  as:  ]\Insic,  Art,  Literature, 

Science,  etc. : 

6.  Are  you  familiar  with  any  of  the  persons  represented  upon 

the  picture-chart?  If  so,  which? 

7.  Are  you  aware  of  any  factors  which  have  prejudiced  your 

judgments?  If  so,  describe  fully  and  cite  the  cases: 

8.  Please  add  any  comments  on  the  experiment  which  will  help 

in  the  correct  interpretation  of  your  results : 

9.  Pledge  to  silence: 

After  the  test  had  been  given  to  all  53  subjects,  the  experi- 
menter consulted  the  collegiate  records  of  the  fifty  graduates 
represented  on  the  picture-chart  and  computed  for  each  the 
average  collegiate  grade  based  on  all  four  years  of  college  work. 
On  the  basis  of  these  av#erage  grades  the  objective  rank  in  gen- 
eral intelligence  w^as  determined  for  each  of  the  fifty  photo- 
graphs. Likewise  the  experimenter  computed  separately  for 
each  photograph  the  number  of  collegiate  courses  taken  and  the 
average  grade  obtained  in  the  major  subject,  in  art,  literature, 
science,  and  music.  From  these  records  the  three  highest  were 
selected  as  the  objective  representatives  of  the  musical,  literary, 
artistic,  and  scientific  tj^pe,  while  the  objective  neutral  types 
were  taken  to  be  those  students  showing  the  smallest  differences 
in  grades  between  their  leading  subject  and  the  other  groups  of 
subjects  as  well  as  the  general  average.  These  objective  rank- 
ings, as  based  upon  the  collegiate  grades  obtained  by  the  fifty 
graduates,  were  then  compared  with  each  of  the  53  subjective 
rankings  made  by  our  judges  and  the  degree  of  resemblance  ex- 
pressed by  the  Spearman  footrule  of  correlation,  according  to 
which  resemblance  may  vary  between  -|-1.00  and  — 1.00.  No 
resemblance  or  almost  none  is  therefore  0  or  a  very  small  posi- 
tive or  negative  fraction,  while  high  degree  of  resemblance  be- 
tween objective  and  subjective  ranking  would  be  expressed  by 
a  fraction  approaching  -fl-^Oj  ^i^d  likewise  a  high  degree  of 
opposition  would  be  indicated  by  a  fractional  value  which  is 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College  9 

almost  — 1.00.  In  accordance  with  Spearman's  formula  we  com- 
puted the  correlation-coefficients  or  degrees  of  resemblance  be- 
tween the  objective  and  the  53  subjective  rankings  and  tabulated 
them.* 

An  inspection  of  these  results  shows  that  the  magnitude 
of  the  53  degrees  or  correlation-coefficients  varied  between 
+.24  and  — .20,  that  three  judges  gave  absolute  0  as  coeffi- 
cients, while  31  judges  gave  coefficients  smaller  than  .1.  Of 
the  remaining  19  judges  14  gave  positive  degrees  varying  be- 
tween .10  and  .24,  and  the  other  5  gave  negative  degrees  vary- 
ing between  .10  and  .20.  The  obvious  conclusion  is  that  none 
of  our  53  judges  ranked  the  photographs  in  a  way  resembling 
to  any  high  degree  the  objective  ranks.  Only  14  of  our  judges 
gave  correlation-coefficients,  both  plus  and  minus,  which  have 
the  required  fair  degree  of  mathematical  reliability,  namely 
the  magnitude  of  .13,  and  as  five  of  these  were  minus,  there 
remain  only  the  results  of  nine  judges  as  giving  a  fairly  re- 
liable, although  but  slight  degree  of  resemblance  between  their 
subjective  rankings  of  the  photographs  and  the  objective  ranks 
of  the  50  graduates  as  measured  by  their  collegiate  average 
grades.  Of  these  nine  judges  only  four  belong  to  the  40  stu- 
dents who  participated  in  the  experiment.  The  remaining  36 
members  of  the  student-body  gave  thus  either  entirely  nega- 
tive results  or  too  small  a  positive  degree  of  resemblance.  Like- 
wise the  five  members  of  the  administrative  staff  gave  similar 
inconclusive  results.  Four  members  of  the  Faculty  gave  the 
following  degrees  of  resemblance,  respectively,  +.13,  +.13, 
+  .16  and  +.13.  The  three  special  subjects  selected  because 
of  their  familiarity  with  many  members  of  the  old  class  gave 
as  degrees  of  resemblance  0,  +.05,  and  +.19,  the  latter  was 
also  a  lady  of  the  Faculty. 

We  likewise  listed  the  results  of  the  ranking  in  the  special 
abilities  for  Music,  Literature,  Art  and  Science  as  well  as  the 
"Neutral  Type."  It  w^ill  be  remembered  that  the  judges  were 
to  select  only  the  three  highest  ranks  of  each  tj^pe.    In  order  to 


The  tabulations  have  been  omitted  from  all  3  studies,  but  interested 
readers  may  obtain  copies  by  addressing  Prof.  L.  R,  Geissler,  Box  283, 
R.-M.  W.  C,  Lynchburg,  Ya. 


10  Bl'LLETlN 

summarize  these  ranks  for  any  one  photograph,  we  assigned 
to  rank  1  a  value  of  3  points,  to  rank  2  a  value  of  2  points, 
and  to  rank  3  a  value  of  1  point,  and  then  multiplied  these 
points  by  the  number  of  times  that  a  photograph  received  each 
rank  and  added  the  three  in-oducts  into  a  Total  Number  of 
Points  which  is  to  be  compared  with  the  objective  collegiate 
records. 

To  take  first  the  ]\Iusical  Type,  our  results  show  that  pho- 
tograph No  15  received  a  total  of  59  points,  the  largest  num- 
ber of  points  accorded  to  any  of  them.  The  person  repre- 
sented by  this  picture  actually,  according  to  the  collegiate 
records,  received  objectively  the  second  rank  in  musical 
ability,  which  seems  to  speak  in  favor  of  the  possibility^  of 
selecting  the  musical  type  from  the  facial  expression  alone. 
On  the  other  hand  the  photographs  of  the  persons  who  ob- 
jectively received  the  first  and  third  rank  were  accorded  by 
the  judges  of  their  facial  expressions  only  6  and  4  points 
respectively,  while  photograph  No.  27  received  the  second 
largest  number  of  points,  namely  34,  and  No.  40  had  28  points. 
Furthermore,  the  photograph  of  No.  15  received  also  the  larg- 
est number  of  points  as  Artistic  Type,  while  it  was  given  no 
points  for  Scientific  Type  and  but  6  and  3  for  Neutral  and  In- 
tellectual Type.  It  seems  evident,  therefore,  that  this  par- 
ticular face  has  made  a  fairly  correct  impression  upon  a  large 
number  of  judges,  namely  upon  40  out  of  53,  and  it  is  coin- 
cidences of  this  nature  which  serve  to  confirm  the  popular 
notion  that  certain  types  of  mental  ability  can  be  recognized 
from  their  facial  expressions,  while  the  negative  instances  of 
failure  of  recognition  easily  escape  attention  and  notice. 

In  the  case  of  the  Literary  Type  not  one  of  the  three  photo- 
graps  which  many  judges  selected  as  deserving  first,  second, 
and  third  rank  were  objectively  ranked  among  the  three 
highest.  The  same  is  true  for  the  Artistic  Type.  Since  musical 
ability,  literary  ability,  and  artistic  ability  may  be  grouped 
together  as  special  forms  of  the  general  aesthetic  type  of 
mind,  we  have  totalled  all  the  })oints  received  by  each  photo- 
graph under  the  three  special  types  and  found  that  No.  15 
received  100  points  and  that  the  third  largest  number  of  points 
belongs  to  photograph  No.   17,  whose  representative  received 


Randolph-^Macon  Woman's  College  H 

objectively  the  second  rank  as  literary  type.  In  these  two  cases 
then  we  find  the  nearest  agreement  between  objective  ranking 
in  aesthetic  abilities  and  the  subjective  ranking  as  based 
merely  on  facial  expression. 

If  we  now  examine  the  other  three  types  of  mind,  we  find 
very  similar  results  as  regards  lack  of  agreement  between  ob- 
jective and  subjective  ranking.  Again  we  have  two  cases  of 
fair  agreement,  one  in  the  Scientific  Type  where  photograph 
No.  24  received  objectively  first  rank  and  was  given  by  the 
judges  the  second  largest  number  of  points,  namely  24,  and 
the  other  case  in  the  Neutral  Type,  where  photograph  No.  30 
had  objectively  and  subjectively  first  rank,  although  the  num- 
ber of  points  were  only  16.  Combining  now  these  three  mental 
types  into  a  non-aesthetic  type  we  find  again  that  photograph 
No.  24  receives  the  highest  number  of  points,  namely  67,  but 
otherwise  there  is  no  agreement  between  objective  and  sub- 
jective ranking. 

It  can  also  be  readily  shown  that  certain  facial  types  have 
made  a  rather  deep  impression  upon  our  judges,  but  that  the 
latter  do  not  agree  in  the  interpretation  of  these  faces,  while 
other  faces  have  been  hardly  noticed.  This  becomes  evident 
when  all  points  accorded  each  face  are  added  together.  From 
this  computation  it  appears  that  the  most  striking  or  im- 
pressive faces  are  those  of  Nos.  15  and  17,  with  No.  24  as 
third.  On  the  other  hand  the  three  least  impressive  faces  are 
those  of  Nos.  50,  41,  and  3,  which  received  only  6,  7,  and  9 
points  respectively.  However,  the  one  outstanding  fact  from 
these  comparisons  is  that  the  faces  of  the  persons  who  ob- 
jectively have  attained  the  three  highest  ranks  in  the  various 
mental  abilities  have  not  been  selected  as  such  by  our  judges, 
with  one  or  two  exceptions. 

It  seemed  also  important  to  ascertain  to  what  extent  our 
judges  agreed  with  each  other  in  their  judgment  of  faces,  irre- 
spective of  the  consideration  whether  their  judgments  were 
mistaken  or  not  as  compared  with  objective  records.  For  this 
purpose  we  tabulated  the  frequencies  with  which  each  of  the 
judges  ranked  each  of  the  fifty  photographs  in  intelligence, 
so  as  to  show  how  often  any  given  photograph  was  assigned 
any  one  of  the  fifty  ranks.    Thus  a  clustering  of  these  figures. 


12  Bulletin 

as  in  the  case  of  photograph  No.  17,  would,  mean  that  many 
judges  give  to  a  certain  photograph  very  similar  ranks :  for 
example,  No.  17  was  given  rank  1  by  4,  rank  2  by  3,  rank  3 
by  -4,  rank  4  by  6,  rank  5  by  3,  rank  6  by  4  judges,  and  so  on, 
while  no  judge  ranked  it  as  8,  13,  17,  20  to  25,  28  and  29,  and 
so  forth,  and  only  a  few  scattered  votes  were  given  for  ranks 
below  14.  This  example  shows  at  the  same  time  the  highest 
degree  of  agreement  amongst  the  53  judges.  The  distribution 
of  the  ranks  ascribed  by  the  53  judges  to  the  same  photograph 
was  also  expressed  in  a  single  value  obtained  in  this  way : 
the  frequency  of  each  rank  is  multiplied  by  the  rank,  these 
products  are  then  added  and  divided  by  53,  the  number  of 
judges,  thus  resulting  in  an  averaged  rank.  On  the  basis  of 
these  values,  the  photographs  are  then  re-ranked  from  lowest 
to  highest,  giving  thus  the  pooled  ranking  of  all  the  judges  of 
all  the  photographs.  This  pooled  ranking  may  also  be  com- 
pared with  the  objective  ranking  by  the  same  Spearman  for- 
mula, and  will  result  in  a  degree  of  resemblance  or  correlation 
coefficient  of  -{-.06,  which  shows  that  there  is  as  little  resem- 
blance between  the  pooled  and  the  objective  ranking  as  was 
found  between  the  objective  ranking  and  the  subjective  rank- 
ings of  the  53  judges  taken  individually.  In  other  words,  not 
even  the  averaged  opinion  of  many  judges  concerning  intelli- 
gence as  based  merely  upon  facial  expression  has  any  value 
whatsoever  as  compared  with  the  objective  facts  revealed  by 
college  achievement.  A  mere  glance  at  the  scattering  judg- 
ments would  convince  anyone  of  the  futility  of  trying  to  esti- 
mate another  person's  intelligence  by  an  examination  of  his 
facial  expression. 

We  shall  now  present  the  main  results  revealed  by  the  an- 
swers of  our  53  judges  to  the  various  questions  presented  to 
them  after  completing  the  ranking  of  the  photographs. 

These  answers  throw  some  light  upon  the  reasons  why  so 
many  people  believe  in  the  possibility  of  reading  personal 
traits  from  facial  expression.  For  instance,  there  seemed  to 
be  a  distinct  tendency  among  many  of  our  judges  to  notice 
resemblances  between  the  photographs  and  persons  of  their 
own  acquaintance,  although  the  comment  was  often  added  that 
they  did  not  think  this  resemblance  had  prejudiced  them.  How- 
ever, if  these  ac(j[uaintances  should  possess  one  of  the  mental 


Rand()].pii-]Mac()n  Woman's  CoiiLEGE  13 

traits  studied  in  this  experiment,  the  conclusion  seems  obvious 
that  the  photog-raphs  resembling  them  mig-ht  also  possess  that 
trait,  and  so  judgment  may  frequently  have  been  influenced 
by  such  considerations. 

It  also  happened  that  photographs  Nos.  11  and  31  were 
recognized  by  several,  the  former  by  15,  the  latter  by  11 
judges,  while  19  other  photographs  were  familiar  to  one  or 
two  judges. 

Other  considerations  influencing  our  judges  in  their  inter- 
pretation of  the  photographs  are  revealed  in  the  following  quo- 
tations from  the  answers  to  our  questions ;  especially  questions 
7  or  8: 

Judge  No.  41.  Slight  resemblance  to  people  I  have  known. 
Careless  appearance. 

No.  26.  Bows  and  arrangement  of  hair  and  cap  prejudiced  me. 
I  don't  think  fat  people  look  very  intelligent  as  a  rule. 
No.  24.  A  heavy  face  portrays  to  me  stolidity. 
No.     9.  Their  caps  pushed  back  on  their  heads  make  them  all 
look  simple-minded. 

No.     8.  Had  a  tendency  to  be  harsh  on  very  pretty  faces  or 
very  ugly  girls,  thinking  the  former  vain,  the  latter  stupid. 
No.     1.  I  don't  like  the  looks  of  photograph  No.  50. 
No.  34.  I  like  the  faces  of  No.  17  and  No.  45. 

From  the  comments  made  in  reply  to  Question  8  we  dis- 
cover that  the  eyes  played  a  large  part  in  the  estimates  of 
18  judges,  and  most  of  them  paid  attention  especially  to  the 
brightness  and  alertness  of  the  eyes.  Besides  this  factor  the 
mouth,  forehead,  and  general  appearance  seemed  to  be  taken 
into  consideration,  as  is  illustrated  in  the  following  quotations 
from  various  judges : 

No.  3.  High  foreheads   and   a   bright,   wide-awake   expression 
usually  symbolize  intelligence  to  me. 
No.  5.  The  expression  of  the  eyes. 

No.  6.  I  never  think  girls  who  look  studious  are  very  intel- 
lectual, but  rather  of  lower  intelligence. 

No.  8.  I  judged  by  general  appearance  in  the  main,  paying, 
however,  special  attention  to  the  expression  of  the  eyes  and 
mouth. 

No.  9.  I  judged  the  pictures  by  the  expressions  in  the  eyes 
and  the  size  of  the  mouth. 


14  Bulletin- 

No.  10.  I  judged  by  eyes  and  forehead  for  intelligence,  by 
eyes  and  general  expression  for  music,  by  eyes  and  noses  for 
literary  ability,  by  general  expression  for  art. 
Xo.  13.  In  some  cases  I  made  my  decision  by  judging  the 
girl  from  her  general  appearance.  Then,  too,  I  compared  these 
girls  with  some  I  already  knew  and  judged  their  ability  in 
that  way. 

Xo.  15.  The  Latin  types  are  associated  in  my  mind  with  music 
and  art. 

No,  21.  By  an  intelligent  look  I  mean  a  general  brightness  of 
expression  which  betokens  an  alert  and  open  mind. 
X^o.  25,  In  choosing  the   girls  with   artistic   ability  I  noticed 
the  kind  of  collars  they  wore.    In  judging  girls  for  their  intel- 
ligence I  noticed  the  expression  of  their  eyes. 
No.  26.    I  always  notice  people's  eyes  to  see  if  they  look  bright 
and   wide-awake    for   intellectual    ones    cr    whether   they   are 
dreamy  as  in  the  case  of  artistic  temperament. 
X^'o.  27,  The  posture  of  the  different  people  helped  me  as  much 
as  anything  else  to  determine  the  results  which  I  gave. 
No.  29,  In  judging  a  person  for  intelligence,  I  think  I  went 
for  the  most  part  by  the  expression  of  their  eyes,  w^iether  they 
looked  as  though  they  were  paying  attention  at  the  time  the 
picture  w^as  taken.   Those  who  were  gazing  out  into  space  with 
dull,  expressionless  eyes  I  put  low. 

No,  30.  For  intelligence  I  looked  at  their  eyes  first  and  then 
forehead,  *  *  *  For  love  of  literature  I  judged  from  a  bright 
open  face.  For  neutrality  I  judged  from  the  equality  of  all 
the  features. 

No.  31.  *  *  *  General  flabbiness  prejudiced  me  against  a  face. 
No.  37.  *  *  *  For  English  Literature  the  general  type  chosen 
reminded  me  of  Miss  X. 

No.  39.  Those  interested  in  science  always  seem  especially 
particular  in  appearance  as  they  must  be  in  their  study.  Ar- 
tists seem  rather  queer  looking;  musical  students  have  more 
sentiment  in  their  expressions  than  others.  I  judged  by  com- 
parison with  people  I  know  and  also  by  the  expression  of  the 
eyes. 

These  illustrations  will  suffice  to  make  us  realize  the  astound- 
ing vagueness  and  indefiniteness  in  the  perception  of  facial 
features  upon  which  the  casual  observer  is  apt  to  base  some- 


RANDOLPH-iMACON  WoMAN's   CoLLEGE  15 

times  rather  definite  and  fixed  notions  of  the  character  traits 
of  the  people  with  whom  he  comes  in  contact.  They  furnish 
therefore  an  adequate  explanation  of  the  lack  of  agreement 
between  the  objective  results  and  the  subjective  ranking  by 
facial  expression. 

What  conclusions  may  we  draw  from  the  facts  presented? 
What  answers  do  we  receive  to  the  questions  asked  at  the  out- 
set of  this  paper?  In  the  first  place,  we  may  repeat  that  the 
most  outstanding  of  all  the  inferences  is  this  that  the  average 
person  has  no  basis  whatsoever  upon  which  to  form  any  judg- 
ment of  a  stranger's  intellectual  capacity  from  a  study  of  his 
features.  It  is  likewise  true  that  there  is  no  agreement  among 
the  judges  in  their  estimates  of  looks  of  intelligence.  We  have 
only  to  inspect  our  tabulations  to  realize  that  the  average 
person  when  judged  by  fifty  judges  on  his  features  only  is 
practically  sure  of  approximately  thirty-five  to  forty  different 
ranks.  We  have  also  found  that  there  are  faces  whose  expres- 
sion is  so  unusual  as  to  attract  the  notice  of  many  judges ;  for 
example,  photographs  of  Nos.  10,  11,  34,  21  and  50.  There  was 
no  comment  made  by  a  single  judge  upon  the  first  three,  but 
Nos.  21  and  50  are  criticised  frequently  for  various  peculiari- 
ties and  are  also  placed  very  low  in  the  scale  for  Intelligence. 
Of  the  five  members  of  the  faculty  among  our  judges  the  four 
ladies  gave  a  correlation  coefficient  of  -[--IS  or  larger  and  may 
therefore  be  said  to  be  much  better  judges  of  girls'  faces  than 
either  the  men  or  the  girls  of  the  same  age  as  those  pictured. 
Even  previous  acquaintance  with  the  faces  judged  seems  to 
be  of  no  help  in  estimating  the  degree  of  intelligence. 

However,  there  seems  to  be  a  somewhat  greater  agreement 
am.ong  the  judges  in  regard  to  special  mental  traits  than  in 
case  of  intelligence.  Also  the  comments  are  much  more  defi- 
nite with  regard  to  the  former,  so  that  we  may  conclude 
that  to  the  average  judge  the  term  intellectual  ability  is 
broader  and  vaguer  and  carries  varied  possibilities,  whereas 
the  ideas  represented  by  the  terms  ''musical  ability,"  ''literary 
ability,"  etc.,  seem  to  be  more  concrete  and  represent  more 
definite  characteristics  to  the  judges.  This  is  supported  also 
by  the  fact  that  the  term  "Neutrality"  was  very  vague  and 
abstract  to  all  and  here  the  judges  disagreed  almost  entirely. 


16  Bulletin 

There  is  no  connection  between  age  and  judgment  of  faces. 
We  have  already  pointed  out  that  the  lady  members  of  the 
faculty  were  better  judges  than  the  girl  students;  the  lady 
members  of  the  Staff,  however,  were  in  no  sense  better  than 
the  students.  Hence  the  superiority  of  the  faculty  ladies  must 
be  due  to  their  experience  in  judging  intellectual  achievement. 
This  is  borne  out  by  the  fact  that  in  judging  the  special  mental 
abilities,  in  which  they  had  no  advantage  of  training  and  ex- 
perience over  the  students,  they  were  no  better  judges  than 
the  girls. 

In  judging  faces  for  special  talents  the  judges  are  more  in 
agreement  with  each  other  in  the  selection  of  certain  unusual 
looking  faces,  but  they  differ  widely  in  the  interpretation  of 
this  unusualness. 

The  one  seeming  exception,  showing  great  agreement  be- 
tween subjective  and  objective  ranking  of  photograph  No.  15, 
which  26  judges  considered  highly  talented  in  music  and  14 
others  in  art  (which  most  judges  seemed  to  consider  a  related 
talent)  is  partly  explained  by  the  fact  that  several  judges 
noted  a  great  resemblance  between  this  face  and  a  recent 
graduate  of  the  college  who  had  shown  great  talent  for  music. 
However,  a  number  of  first-year  students  who  could  not  have 
known  this  recent  graduate  were  also  among  the  judges  giv- 
ing photograph  No.  15  a  rank  among  the  first  three,  so  that 
it  seems  unfair  to  explain  this  coincidence  entirely  upon  a 
basis  of  mere  chance. 

Many  judges  seemed  to  agree  rather  definitely  upon  the 
interpretation  of  certain  features  as  indicative  of  the  Scien- 
tific Type.  The  only  type  we  find  them  confusing  with  science 
is  that  of  Neutrality.  For  instance,  photograph  No.  24  received 
24  points  for  science  and  11  for  neutral,  and  No.  29  had  17 
points  for  science  and  8  for  neutral.  With  very  few  exceptions 
those  photographs  receiving  many  points  for  aesthetic  traits 
received  very  few  points  as  either  scientific  or  neutral  and 
conversely. 

The  introspective  comments  and  answers  to  questions  reveal 
that  our  judges  tried  to  find  help  in  their  ranking  from  all 
sorts  of  extraneous  and  irrelevant  factors,  such  as  tilt  of  the 
academic  cap,  type  of  collar  worn  and  the  like,  besides  such 


Randolpii-Macon  Woman's  College  17 

features  as  beauty  or  fatness,  posture,  etc.  Furthermore,  our 
judges  show  the  influence  of  all  the  current  popular  notions 
and  ideas  concerning  the  appearance  of  different  types  of 
mind.  Besides  the  brightness  of  the  eyes  and  the  height  of  the 
forehead  and  the  shape  of  the  mouth  they  tell  us  that  artistic 
and  musical  persons  must  be  Bohemian  in  appearance  and 
scientific  persons  plain  and  practical  looking.  Hence  it  seems 
almost  impossible  to  get  judgments  of  mental  traits  based  ex- 
clusively upon  the  facial  features  and  expressions  and  not  to 
have  them  influenced  by  preconceived  notions  or  popular  tra- 
ditions. 

To  summarize  our  conclusions  with  special  reference  to  our 
main  questions,  we  find  (1)  that  the  casual  observer  has  no 
basis  upon  which  to  form  a  judgment  of  other  persons'  intel- 
ligence from  their  photographs,  (2)  that  experience  in  judging 
intellectual  progress  renders  one's  judgment  of  facial  expres- 
sion slightly  more  correct  with  regard  to  intelligence  only,  but 
not  with  regard  to  special  mental  abilities,  (3)  that  neither 
age  nor  sex  of  judge  and  judged  are  of  any  advantage  in  judg- 
ing faces,  and  (4)  that  special  traits,  like  musical,  literary, 
artistic  or  scientific  ability  are  slightly  easier  to  judge  than 
general  intelligence  and  result  in  somewhat  greater  agreement 
of  judges  among  themselves,  whether  their  results  are  in 
agreement  with  the  objective  measures  or  not. 


18  Bulletin 

II.— THE  EFFECT  OF  MUSIC  ON  THE  IMAGINATION 

]\1artha  L.  Teague,   '22,  Experimenter 

Most  of  the  psychological  studies  on  music  so  far  have  been 
concerned  either  with  problems  of  musical  interpretation  or 
with  the  nature  of  bodily  reactions  to  music,  as  changes  in  the 
rate  of  heart-beat,  pulse,  respiration,  or  distribution  of  blood 
supply.  Lack  of  space  forbids  a  detailed  review  of  this  work ; 
only  a  few  of  the  most  important  conclusions  may  be  cited 
here.  It  has  been  found  that  music  has  a  rather  definite  and 
remarkably  uniform  emotional  content  for  the  average  lis- 
tener and  that  individual  differences  are  mostly  in  regard  to 
variations  of  intensity.  Therefore  the  chief  ''function  of  mu- 
sic is  to  indicate  or  produce  a  mood  rather  than  to  communi- 
cate a  set  of  images"  (according  to  MacDougal).  To  arouse  a 
strong  individual  mood  requires  music  of  an  extremely  strong 
impressiveness  with  a  well  marked  emotional  tone. 

Quite  recently  the  Music  Research  Department  of  the  Edison 
Laboratories  at  Orange,  N.  J.,  has  inaugurated  a  series  of 
experiments  under  the  leadership  of  a  prominent  American 
psychologist,  Dr.  W.  V.  Bingham,  Director  of  Applied  Psy- 
chology at  Carnegie  Institute  of  Technology,  Pittsburgh.  The 
problem  of  this  investigation  was  to  determine  ''what  music 
does."  The  result  of  this  work  was  the  publication  of  a  list 
of  137  Edison  phonograph  records,  divided  into  the  following 
twelve  series : 

15  records ''To   stimulate  and   enrich  your   Imagination" 
14       "        "To  bring  you  peace  of  mind ' ' 

10       "        "To  make  you  joyous" 

8  "        "In  moods  of  wistfulness  to  bring  you  relief" 

]0       "        "To  bring  about  jolly  moods  and  good  fellowship" 

9  "        "In  moments  of  fatigue  to  rouse  your  laggard  energies" 

n  "  "To  induce  and  sustain  the  tenderness  of  love  and  its  mood ' ' 

10  "  "To  induce  moods  of  dignity  and  grandeur" 

12  "  "To  revive  the  mood  for  tender  memory" 

13  "  "To  inspire  you  with  the  mood  for  true  devotion" 
9  "  "To  stir  up  or  electrify  your  soul ' ' 

16  "  "To  catch  the  childish  fancy  and  make  it  merry  with  glee." 


Randolph-]\Iacon  Woman's  College  10 

These  results,  like  most  of  the  studies  of  musical  interpre- 
tation, have  been  based  mainly  upon  the  introspective  reports 
of  the  listeners,  while  hardly  any  objective  tests  have  been 
published  to  verify  or  substantiate  sux?h  introspections  by 
quantitative  results.  We  have,  therefore,  chosen  to  attack  this 
problem  and  to  subject  a  few  selections  from  the  first  Edison 
series  of  records  to  an  objective  and  quantitative  test,  in  order 
to  ascertain  whether  or  not  these  selections  do  have  the  stimu- 
lating and  enriching  effect  on  the  imagination  that  is  claimed 
for  them.  To  prove  such  a  claim  requires  two  sets  of  facts : 
It  will  be  necessary  to  show,  first,  that  during  or  immediately 
after  listening  to  Edison  records  of  the  first  series  the  imagi- 
nation produces  greater  effect  than  under  ordinary  condi- 
tions ;  and  secondly,  that  listening  to  selections  from  any  other 
Edison  series  does  not  have  as  great  an  effect  as  hearing  selec- 
tions from  the  first  series.  Another  complicating  factor  is  that 
of  practice.  Since  each  person  had  to  be  tested  twice,  once 
with  and  once  without  music,  it  is  possible  that  the  second 
test  might  have  produced  better  results  on  account  of  the  prac- 
tice that  the  observer  had  received  during  the  first  test.  Finally, 
there  remains  the  necessity  of  giving  two  test  forms  of  the 
imagination  which  are  to  be  either  of  exactly  the  same  degree 
of  difHculty  or  at  least  of  a  definite  and  well  measurable  dif- 
ference, so  that  accurate  allowance  can  be  made  for  it  in  the 
comparison  of  the  two  sets  of  results. 

To  provide  for  these  four  sets  of  conditions,  we  divided  our 
234  observers  into  four  groups,  and  tested  each  of  them  with 
one  set  of  conditions  only.  A  group  of  66  observers  was  di- 
vided into  two  Control  Groups  of  33  subjects  each,  designated 
X  and  Y.  Control  group  X  was  tested  with  test-form  (a)  on 
the  first  day  and  with  test-form  (b)  a  week  later,  while  Con- 
trol group  Y  used  the  test-form  (b)  on  the  first  day  and  (a) 
a  week  later.  These  control  groups  were  not  tested  with  the 
music  at  all,  as  the  results  from  them  were  to  be  used  as 
standards  or  objective  measures  of  the  imagination.  The  re- 
maining 168  observers  were  tested  without  music  on  one  day 
and  with  the  music  about  a  week  afterwards  or  before.  Group 
A  had  90  observers  who  on  their  first  day  were  given  test- 
form  (a)  and  no  music,  and  on  their  second  day  test-form  (b) 
and  selections  from  the  first  series  of  Edison  records.    Group 


20  Bulletin 

B  consisted  of  40  subjects  and  the  only  difference  in  this  group 
consisted  in  the  fact  that  on  the  second  day  they  had  to  listen 
to  a  miscellaneous  list  of  Edison  records.  Group  C  had  38 
subjects  and  they  had  test-form  (a)  with  the  same  selections 
from  the  first  series  on  their  first  day,  while  a  week  later  they 
used  test-form  (b)  without  music.  Of  the  168  subjects  tested 
with  music  153  were  drawn  from  all  four  classes  of  the  stu- 
dent-body, while  the  remaining  15  were  members  of  the  faculty 
and  their  wives,  and  3  of  the  15  were  men  of  the  Music  De- 
partment. The  tests  were  made  as  a  rule  on  small  groups  of 
subjects  varying  from  3  to  12,  and  nearly  always  at  corre- 
sponding hours  cf  the  day. 

For  groups  A  and  C  we  selected  the  following  three  Edison 
records  from  the  first  series : 

1.  Miserere    (Soprano,   Tenor,  and  Chorus) No.  82516 

2.  Calm  as  the  Night   (Soprano  Solo) No.  80489 

3.  Traumerei    (Violin-cello    Solo) No.  80071 

For  group  B  the  following  miscellaneous  Edison  records  were 
used: 

1.  Anvil   Chorus    (Orchestra    and    Chorus) No.  82516 

2.  Go  down,  Moses    (Tenor  and  Chorus) No.  80487 

3.  Drink  to  me  only    (Violin  Solo) No.  82184 

These  selections  were  played  on  an  Edison  phonograph  (kindly 
lent  to  the  Department  for  this  purpose  by  the  Oppleman 
Specialty  Store  of  Lynchburg,  Va.),  which  stood  in  a  room 
adjoining  the  test-room,  out  of  sight  of  the  observers,  but  the 
door  connecting  the  two  rooms  was  wide  open.  We  shall  speak 
of  the  test  without  music  as  the  normal  period.  On  these  days 
the  test  of  the  imagination  was  preceded,  in  place  of  the  lis- 
tening to  music,  by  a  monotonous  mental  activity  requiring 
concentrated  attention,  which  consisted  in  cancelling  certain 
prescribed  digits  from  three  sheets,  each  containing  1000 
equally  spaced  and  equally  frequent  digits  from  0  to  9,  hap- 
hazardly distributed  (Stoelting,  No.  27011). 

The  effects  on  the  imagination  were  objectively  tested  and 
measured  by  two  well-known  and  standardized  tests.  The  first 
is  a  test  of  sentence  formation  by  the  Masselon  method  and 
consists  in  writing  during  a  limited  period  of  time  as  many 
different  sentences  as  possible,  each  sentence  to  contain  three 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College  21 

prescribed  nouns  or  verbs.  The  second  is  a  word-building  test 
and  consists  in  writing  during  a  limited  period  of  time  as 
many  different  words  as  possible,  each  word  to  contain  cer- 
tain prescribed  vowels  and  consonants.  An  introspective  ac- 
count cf  our  observers'  moods  was  obtained  by  having  them 
fill  out  a  Mood  Change  Chart  similar  to  the  Edison  Mood 
Change  Chart,  which  is  reproduced  here  on  a  smaller  scale 
(see  page  23.)  The  best  idea  of  the  course  of  the  whole  ex- 
periment on  the  two  days  can  be  given  probably  by  quoting 
exactly  the  Instructions  read  to  the  subjects  at  the  beginning 
of  each  day's  work. 


INSTRUCTIONS 

This  experiment  is  a  psychological  study  of  the  imagination.  Our  prob- 
lem is  to  find  out  how  imagination  can  be  influenced  by  intellectual  ac- 
tivity and  by  musical  enjoyment.  The  former  will  consist  in  checking  off 
certain  numbers  from  a  sheet  covered  with  digits  in  haphazard  order.  After 
the  checking  off  is  completed  I  shall  ask  you  to  use  your  imagination  in 
the  construction  of  sentences  which  are  to  contain  certain  words.  Then, 
another  test  Avill  consist  in  making  as  many  words  as  possible  out  of  a 
certain  number  of  letters.  More  detailed  instructions  for  these  tests  will 
be   given   later. 

Before  we  start  the  experiment  I  want  you  all  to  fill  in  the  items  on 
this  sheet  of  paper  which  is  called  ' '  Mood  Change  Chart. ' '  State  first  your 
name  and  age  and  leading  subject  (or  Vocation).  If  you  have  no  major 
subject,  put  down  the  one  you  are  most  interested  in  or  the  one  you  are 
considering  as  your  major.  In  the  second  item  check  off  the  present 
period  and  then  fill  in  what  you  have  been  doing  in  the  preceding  periods 
of  the  morning   (or  afternoon).    In  the  next  item  let  us  agree  on  calling 

the  Aveather :   In  the  next  item  check  off  the  mood  in  which 

you  find  yourself  now.  If  none  of  the  printed  pairs  describe  your  present 
mood  accurately,  supply  your  own  descriptive  term  on  the  blank  space  at 
the  end  of  this  item.  The  last  two  items  will  not  be  filled  in  until  after 
the  experiment  is  finished.  Fill  out  the  Chart  now.  (After  everybody  has 
completed  this,  continue:)  Now  turn  the  sheet  over  and  get  ready  for 
the   experiment. 

Cancellation  of  Digits.  Each  of  you  will  have  three  of  these  sheets  cov- 
ered with  columns  of  figures.  Write  your  name 
and  date  on  each  sheet.  At  the  signals  '  *  Ready — Now ' '  you  are  to  begin 
and  cancel  all  the  7  's  and  0  's  on  the  first  sheet.  Be  very  accurate  in  your 
cancellations;  do  not  omit  any  7  or  0  and  do  not  cross  off  any  wrong  fig- 
ures; do  not  try  for  speed.  Wlien  you  have  finished,  turn  your  sheet  over 
and  rest,  until  new  instructions  for  the  next  sheet  are  given.  If  anybody 
has  not  finished  at  the  end  of  5  minutes,  I  shall  give  the  signal  ' '  Stop, ' ' 
for  everybody  to  stop  working.  (After  all  are  finished  pause  one  more 
minute,  then  continue:).  Get  ready  for  the  second  sheet.  Cancel  all  9 's  and 
4's,  then  rest  and  wait  for  the  last  set  of  instructions.  (After  another 
one  minute's  rest  continue:).  Get  ready  for  the  third  sheet.  Cancel  all 
5  's  and   8  's,  then  rest  as  before. 


22  Bulletin 

Sentence  Formation.  Now  you  are  to  use  your  imagination  in  the  con- 
struction of  sentences  which  are  to  contain  cer- 
tain words.  Three  nouns  or  three  verbs  will  be  given.  You  are  to  write 
as  many  sentences  containing  the  three  words  as  possible.  Each  sentence 
must  contain  all  three  words,  but  how  many  others  besides  does  not  matter. 
The  sentences  are  to  be  as  varied  as  possible.  Three  minutes  will  be 
allowed.  Begin  with  the  signal  "Ready — Now"  and  end  at  the  signal 
' '  Stop, ' '  in  the  middle  of  a  sentence  or  wherever  you  are.  In  the  noun 
test  you  may  use  either  singular  or  plural  forms  and  possessive  as  well  as 
nominative  and  objective  cases.  In  the  verb  test  you  may  use  any  form 
or  tense  of  the  verb,  as  to  go,  gone,  will  go,  etc.  There  will  be  3  sets  of 
words.    In  test-form    (a)    the   three   sets   are:     Citizen,       Horse,       Decree 

Bell,  Ground,    Owner 

Bless,  Destroy,   Write 

In    test-form    (b)    the    three    sets    are:      Skill,         Modification,         Picture 

Cup,  Fraction,  Money 

Require,     Choose,  Run 

Word  Building.  In  this  test  you  are  to  use  your  imagination  in  the  for- 
mation of  words  which  are  to  contain  certain  letters. 
From  these  six  letters  you  are  to  make  as  many  words  as  you  can.  All 
words  must  be  English  and  proper  names  are  permitted.  You  may  use  any 
number  of  letters  from  one  to  six  in  any  one  word,  but  none  of  the  six 
letters  prescribed  may  be  used  tAvice  in  the  same  Avord,  and  no  other  letters 
than  the  six  are  to  be  used.  You  will  have  four  minutes  for  this  test. 
Begin  at  the  signals  * '  Ready — Now  ' '  and  finish  at  the  signal  '  *  Stop. ' ' 
In  test-form  (a)  the  six  letters  are:  a,  e,  o,  b,  m,  t; 
In  test-form   (b)   the  six  letters  are:      e,    a,    i,    r,    I,    p. 

Musical  Enjoyment.  As  you  will  recall,  onr  experiment  is  a  psycho- 
logical study  of  the  imagination.  Today  this  will 
be  preceded  by  listening  to  several  pieces  of  music,  played  on  the  Edison 
phonograph.  As  you  hear  the  music,  forget  that  you  are  making  an  ex- 
periment. Listen  as  naturally  as  you  can  and  do  not  strain  to  pay  atten- 
tion or  to  produce  any  special  etfect  upon  yourself.  Forget  yourself  as 
much  as  possible  in  listening,  also  your  surroundings  and  close  your  eyes 
if  you  so  prefer.  Simply  sit  still  and  see  if  the  music  will  produce  any 
effect.  At  the  end  of  each  selection  a  rest-period  of  one  minute  will  be 
given.  After  all  three  selections  have  been  played,  fill  out  item  No.  4  on 
the  Mood  Change  Chart,  and  then  ])repare  for  the  test  on  the  imagination. 

Pledge  to  Silence.     At  the  end  of  each  day  everybody  is  asked  to  pledge 
himself  to  keep  silent  about  this  experiment,  as  any 
discussion    of    it    outside   of   the   test-room    may   prevent    others    from   par- 
ticipating in  it. 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  CoivLege  28 


MOOD  CHANGE  CHART 


Name   

Age: 

Vocation  or  Major  Subject : 

2.  Time:  First  Period    (A.M.) 

Second     ''  ''       

Third       "  "       

Fourth     "  ''       

Fifth        ''  ''       


First  Period    (P.  M. ) „ 

Second     ''  ''       

Third       ''  "       

Fourth     "  ' '       _ 

Fifth        ' '  " 

3.  Weather:      Dull Bright Cold Warm 

4.  What  is  your  mood  now,  immediately  preceding  the  test? 

Serious    Worried    Nervous  Sad      — 

or                          or                        or                       or 
Gay      Carefree   Composed    Joyful  _ — 

Discouraged Fatigued Depressed 

or                                   or                                  or 
Optimistic Unfatigued Exhilarated 

Or : 


5.  What  was  your  Mood  during  the  test? 

6.  What  is  your  Mood  now,  immediately  after  the  testl 


7.  Please  give  any  comments  on  the  mood  changes  or  the 
tests  that  you  think  would  be  helpful  to  us  in  the  inter- 
pretation of  the  results  : 


8.  Pledge  to  Silence : 


24  Bulletin 

The  Sentence  Formation  Test  furnishes  two  numerical 
values,  the  average  number  of  correct  sentences  per  Subject 
formed  by  each  Group,  and  the  average  number  of  words  per 
Subject  used  in  constructing  the  sentences.  The  quality  of  the 
sentences  might  also  have  been  taken  into  account  by  assign- 
ing graded  arbitrary  values  to  varying  degrees  of  originality. 
These  3  values  could  then  have  been  combined  into  a  single 
Index  by  dividing  the  product  of  the  number  of  words  times 
the  number  of  sentences  by  the  reciprocal  value  of  the  quality. 
But  since  the  scoring  of  the  quality  is  a  rather  subjective 
affair  and  liable  to  fluctuations,  we  used  only  the  product  of 
the  number  of  sentences  times  the  number  of  words  as  an  In- 
dex of  the  imagination.  To  be  sure  such  an  Index,  like  any  other 
that  might  be  devised,  has  its  disadvantages ;  the  difficulty  of 
having  to  deal  with  two  values  lies  in  indicating  the  exact 
difference  in  work  accomplished  on  the  two  experimental  days. 

If  we  examine  now  the  work  of  the  2  Control  Groups  in  the 
Sentence  Formation  Test,  we  find  that  test-form  (a),  when 
used  on  the  first  day  by  group  X  gives  almost  as  good  a  result 
as  when  used  on  the  second  day  by  group  Y;  it  is  therefore 
not  subject  to  practice.  On  the  other  hand,  test-form  (b)  on 
the  first  day  gives  results  very  inferior  to  those  on  the  second 
day,  when  they  are  even  slightly  superior  to  test-form  (a). 
We  conclude,  therefore,  that  these  two  test-forms  are  about 
equal  in  difficulty,  but  (b)  is  very  much  influenced  by  previous 
practice.  In  studying  the  individual  records  of  the  members 
of  each  group,  we  find  that  in  both  groups  there  are  a  few  in- 
dividuals whose  results  are  the  reverse  of  the  majority.  We 
have,  therefore,  divided  each  Control  Group  into  two  sub- 
divisions, the  23  and  28  subjects  respectively  of  XI  and  Yl 
giving  much  better  results  on  the  second  day,  while  the  9  and 
5  subjects  respectively  of  X2  and  Y2  do  better  on  the  first 
day.  A  very  similar  phenomenon  occurs  in  the  three  main 
groups  A,  B,  and  C,  which  have,  therefore,  been  subdivided 
in  like  manner  into  Al  and  A2,  Bl  and  B2,  and  Cl  and  C2. 
The  gains  or  losses  on  the  second  day  over  the  first  day  may 
be  indicated  in  absolute  ditt'erenees  between  the  two  Indices 
and  in  per  cent,  gain  or  loss  of  the  second  day  over  the  first. 

In  comparing  now  first  of  all  the  three  main  groups  A,  B, 
and  (J  as  wholes  with  X  and  Y,  we  find  that  on  the  days  when 


Kandolpii-Macon  Woman's  College  25 

music  immediately  preceded  the  Sentence  Formation  Test, 
much  lower  records  were  made  on  an  average  in  all  three 
groups,  indicating  that  music  had  an  inhibiting  influence  on 
subsequent  imaginative  activity.  The  results  are  lowest  for 
groups  A  and  C,  where  the  Edison  records  of  the  first  series 
were  used.  Examining  next  the  corresponding  subdivisions  we 
notice  that  out  of  the  90  subjects  in  group  A,  53  (or  about 
58%)  were  unfavorably  influenced  by  the  music,  and  only  37 
(or  about  42%)  gave  better  results  after  listening  to  the  music. 
Similar  results  were  obtained  from  group  B,  with  the  miscel- 
laneous music,  where  27  out  of  40  (or  67%)  were  unfavorably 
influenced,  and  13  (or  33%)  improved  with  the  music.  Like- 
wise in  group  C,  where  the  music  came  on  the  first  day,  35  out 
of  38  (or  about  92%)  showed  lower  records  with  it,  and  only 
3  (or  about  8%)  gave  better  results  with  it.  To  sum  up,  out 
of  the  168  subjects  tested  with  music,  115  (or  about  70%) 
were  inhibited  in  their  imaginative  activity  after  listening  to 
three  musical  selections,  and  only  53  (or  about  30%)  gave 
better  results  after  hearing  music.  In  other  words,  for  every 
person  whose  imagination  is  enriched  and  stimulated  by  lis- 
tening to  music  (and  not  necessarily  to  selections  from  the 
first  series  of  the  Edison  records)  there  are  at  least  two  per- 
sons whose  imagination  is  unfavorably  influenced  immediately 
after  hearing  such  music.  Our  results  from  the  Sentence  For- 
mation Test  are  quite  decisive  about  this  fact,  and  the  only 
criticism  that  could  be  raised  is  that  forming  sentences  does 
not  test  the  various  other  activities  in  which  the  imagination 
may  manifest  itself. 

How  about,  then,  the  Word  Building  Test?  The  results  here 
are  more  easily  calculated,  because  this  test  furnishes  but  one 
numerical  value,  the  average  number  of  words  per  Subject 
for  every  group.  From  the  two  Control  Groups  we  learn  that 
the  two  test-forms  (a)  and  (b)  are  unequal  in  difficulty  and 
also  subject  to  practice.  The  individual  differences  are  also 
very  marked,  for  we  find  here  in  addition  to  the  two  sub- 
divisions with  opposite  tendencies  also  a  small  group  of  indi- 
viduals who  with  both  test-forms  construct  the  same  number 
of  words.   This  is  also  true  of  the  3  main  groups. 

If  we  study  first  the  results  from  the  five  groups  X,  Y,  A, 
B,  and  C,  as  wholes,  we  notice  a  striking  resemblance  between 


26  Bulletin 

X  and  A  and  B  on  the  one  hand,  and  Y  and  C  on  the  other. 
In  the  case  of  X  the  second  day's  work  is  about  11%  better 
than  the  first  day's  work,  in  A  it  is  10.1%  better,  in  B  10.4% 
better,  so  that  the  previous  listening  to  music  for  groups  A  and 
B  seems  to  have  had  no  influence  whatsoever,  while  in  group 
C  (where  according  to  Control  Group  Y  a  loss  on  the  second 
day  of  about  7.4%  should  be  expected)  the  actual  loss  was 
only  2%,  thus  showing  that  here  the  music  had  on  the  whole 
an  unfavorable  influence.  In  general,  the  results  with  the 
Word  Building  Test,  therefore,  confirm  the  findings  with  the 
Sentence   Formation  Test. 

In  regard  to  the  individual  records,  matters  are  a  little  more 
complicated.  While  XI  shows  a  gain  of  the  second  day  of 
16.3%  over  the  first  day,  Al  shows  a  corresponding  gain  of 
20.9%  and  Bl  of  27%.  Likewise  for  Y2  the  second  day's  gain 
is  24.3%,  but  for  C2  on  the  day  without  music  the  correspond- 
ing gain  is  only  20.7%.  In  these  three  subdivisions,  which  con- 
tain 100  of  the  168  subjects  (or  almost  60%),  we  find,  there- 
fore, a  favorable  effect  of  music,  which,  however,  is  by  far 
greater  with  the  miscellaneous  selections  than  with  those  of 
the  first  Edison  series.  The  unfavorable  effect  of  music  in  the 
Word  Building  Test  seems  to  be  limited  to  the  smaller  groups, 
having  a  total  of  52  subjects  (or  about  31%  of  all  168  sub- 
jects), while  a  still  smaller  group  of  16  subjects  (or  about  9%) 
show  no  influence  of  music  whatsoever.  Six  of  these  16  had  in 
the  preceding  Sentence  Formation  Test  shown  a  favorable  in- 
fluence of  music,  the  other  10  an  unfavorable  influence ;  in  both 
groups  the  effect  of  the  music  had  passed  away. 

This  leads  us  to  enquire  how  the  other  subjects  stand  when 
their  performance  in  both  tests  is  taken  into  consideration. 
We  find  that  only  40  out  of  the  168  subjects  improved  in  both 
tests  with  the  music,  and  adding  to  them  the  6  who  improved 
in  the  first  but  remained  constant  in  the  second  test,  we  have 
46  out  of  the  168  (or  about  27%)  whose  imagination  is  uni- 
formly enriched  and  stimulated  by  listening  to  music.  Like- 
wise there  are  35  subjects  who  in  both  tests  have  done  less 
after  hearing  music,  and  adding  to  them  the  10  who  did  less 
in  the  first  test  but  remained  constant  in  the  second,  we  have 
45  out  of  the  168  (or  again  about  27%)  whose  imagination  has 
been  uniformly  inhibited  by  the  music.    The  remaining  77  sub- 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College  27 

jects  (or  about  45%)  show  a  conflicting  or  ambiguous  influ- 
ence of  music.  Thirteen  of  them  improved  in  the  Sentence 
Formation  Test,  but  did  worse  with  the  Word  Building  Test, 
and  64  gave  worse  results  with  the  Sentence  Formation  Test 
but  improved  with  the  Word  Building  Test. 

In  order  to  decide  whether  the  selections  from  the  first  Edi- 
son series  are  superior  to  the  miscellaneous  selections  or  not, 
we  should  compare  the  results  of  subdivisions  A2  and  €2  with 
those  of  B2,  in  the  Sentence  Formation  Test,  and  Al  and  CI 
with  Bl  in  the  AVord  Building  Test.  In  both  instances  we  find 
that  the  gain  is  decidedly  greater  with  the  miscellaneous  se- 
lections, showing,  therefore,  that  the  claims  made  for  the  first 
series  of  the  Edison  Mood  Music  are  not  borne  out  by  experi- 
mental facts  and  quantitative  measurements. 

We  may,  therefore,  conclude  from  our  results,  first,  that 
they  show  no  superiority  of  the  Edison  series  of  musical  selec- 
tions over  other  miscellaneous  selections  in  their  enriching 
and  stimulating  influence  on  the  imagination,  and  secondly, 
that  this  effect  is  limited  to  about  one  person  out  of  four,  and 
applies  to  music  in  general. 


28  Bulletin 

III.— THE  INFLUENCE  OF  POETRY  ON  MOOD 

ViRGiNLV  Fitzgerald,    '22,  Experimenter 

This  experiment  is  an  attempt  to  extend  the  scientific  study 
of  the  influence  of  music  on  moods,  begun  by  the  Music  Re- 
search Department  of  the  Edison  Laboratories,  into  another 
field  of  art,  namely  poetry,  and  to  enquire  somewhat  critically 
into  the  classification  of  moods  employed  in  the  Edison  Mood 
Change  Chart  which  has  received  wide  publicity. 

The  Edison  experiments  mark  a  new  departure  in  the  study 
of  moods  and  feelings.  Up  to  this  time  experimental  psy- 
chology had  concerned  itself  chiefly  with  the  attempt  to  dis- 
cover and  describe  the  nature  of  feelings  and  their  bodily  ex- 
pressions. Although  much  work  had  been  done  in  this  direc- 
tion, no  satisfactory  classification  of  feelings  or  moods  had 
appeared.  The  very  terms  "mood,"  ''feeling,"  and  "emo- 
tion" are  used  loosely  with  overlapping  meaning.  While  in 
the  original  Edison  experiments  on  moods  and  music,  con- 
ducted by  W.  V.  Bingham,  "much  attention  to  terminology 
and  definitions"  was  given,  according  to  Bingham's  own  state- 
ment in  the  Edison  pamphlet  on  "Mood  Music"  (page  29), 
the  list  of  fourteen  moods  on  the  Mood  Change  Chart,  seems 
hardly  satisfactory  from  a  psychological  point  of  view,  aside 
from  the  fact  that  these  moods  are  not  defined  and  merely 
arranged  in  seven  pairs.  But  for  the  sake  of  possible  com- 
parison of  our  results  with  those  of  the  Edison  Laboratory  we 
decided  to  employ  the  list  in  its  entire  length. 

The  question  of  the  mood  effect  of  poetry  arises  naturally 
from  that  of  mood  music,  since  both  arts  have  a  recognized 
emotional  appeal  and  in  part  use  similar  means,  such  as  rhythm 
and  tonal  cadences,  at  least  when  poetry  is  orally  recited.  But 
poetry  is  more  intellectual  and  further  complicated  by  the  re- 
lation of  thought-content  to  linguistic  form  and  may  appeal 
to  the  eye  instead  of  the  ear.  Our  main  problem  was,  then,  to 
determine  whether  listening  to  certain  poems  produces  definite 
well-marked  and  uniform  mood  responses  similar  to  the  effect 
claimed  for  the  137  Edison  records  called  "Mood  Music." 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College  29 

In  order  to  have  the  experimental  conditions  as  nearly  the 
same  as  possible,  these  poems  should  have  been  produced  by 
Edison  records,  but  since  these  were  not  available,  the  poems 
were  read  by  the  experimenter  to  groups  of  students  under 
otherwise  constant  external  conditions.  The  forty  subjects 
belonged  to  the  Sophomore  and  Junior  class,  their  ages  fall- 
ing between  17  and  20  years.  Among  them,  18  were  taking 
their  major  work  in  English  or  English  Literature,  the  others 
were  leading  in  Mathematics,  French,  History,  Latin  and 
Science.  In  addition  to  this  group,  a  control  group  of  forty 
students  selected  from  the  whole  student-body,  was  used  for 
one  single  test.  We  based  our  own  Mood  Change  Chart  on 
that  of  Edison,  with  certain  modifications.*  Before  each  test 
these  charts  were  distributed  to  the  subjects  to  be  filled  in 
according  to  Instructions. 

Some  difficulty  was  found  in  selecting  from  the  great  body 
of  English  poetry  the  poems  best  suited  to  our  purpose.  The 
experimenter  tried  to  make  the  list  as  varied  and  representa- 
tive as  possible  and  at  the  same  time  avoid  poems  whose  words 
suggested  the  emotional  response.  For  convenience  in  giving 
the  test,  all  of  the  poems  were  taken  from  Burton  E.  Steven- 
son's Home  Book  of  Verse.  The  poems  selected  were,  with  a 
few  exceptions,  between  twenty  and  seventy  lines  in  length, 
so  that  at  least  ten  poems  could  be  read  in  an  hour  without 
producting  fatigue  in  the  listeners.  A  few  poems  were  shorter, 
and  a  few  of  the  longer  poems  were  shortened  by  omitting 
unessential  stanzas.  Poems  hackneyed  by  school  use  and  poems 
with  difficult  dialect  were  also  avoided.  The  poems  range  in 
style  and  quality  from  Browning  and  Shelley  to  Eugene  Field 
and  Carclyn  Wells,  and  cover  many  lyric  types  and  literary 
periods.  This  list  was  made  primarily  for  college  students 
with  a  considerable  literary  background ;  but  for  more  gen- 
eral use  several  changes  would  probably  be  found  desirable. 

The  poems  were  divided  into  ten  groups  of  seven  each,  ac- 
cording to  subject-matter.  No  exact  literary  classification  was 
attempted,  and  in  some  cases  the  division  may  seem  purely 
arbitrary.    In  selecting  the  poems  for  each  weekly  session,  no 


A  copy  of  our  Mood  Change  Chart,  somewhat  reduced  in  size,  has  been 
given  in  the  preceding  study,  see  page  23. 


30  Btlletix 

regular  sclieme  was  followed,  but  abrupt  changes  of  subject 
matter  or  emotion  were  avoided  as  far  as  possible,  in  order 
not  to  heighten  the  mood  effect  artificially  by  contrast.  In 
most  cases  two  poems  of  the  same  group  were  read  in  succession. 
After  all  seventy  poems  had  been  presented  to  the  group  of 
forty  students,  one  poem  from  each  group  was  selected  as 
being  typical  of  the  others,  and  these  ten  poems  were  read  as 
a  control  test  to  forty  other  subjects.  Our  first  group  of  forty 
subjects  was  divided  into  four  sections,  which  met  once  a  week 
at  a  regular  period  in  the  same  class-room.  The  poems  were 
read  by  the  same  Experimenter,  who. in  her  reading  tried  to 
speak  as  distinctly  and  naturally  as  possible,  accenting  both 
rhythm  and  sense,  but  without  attempt  at  elocution. 

The  following  Instructions  w^ere  given  to  all  subjects : 

''This  is  a  psychological  experiment  to  determine  how  one's  mood  may- 
change  by  listening  to  poetry.  The  changes  are  to  be  recorded  on  the 
Mood  Change  Chart  before  you.  First  fill  in  under  your  name  your  age 
and  vocation  or  major  subject.  If  you  have  not  yet  chosen  a  major,  write 
down  the  subject  you  are  most  interested  in  or  the  one  you  are  consider- 
ing as  your  major.  In  the  second  item  check  off  the  present  period  of  the 
day  and  then  fill  in  what  you  have  been  doing  in  the  preceding  periods  of 
the  morning  or  afternoon.  In  the  next  item  let  us  agree  on  calling  the 
weather   at   present   and  

Before  filling  in  the  fourth  item,  your  present  mood,  start  to  think 
about  yourself  and  how  you  feel.  In  deciding  how  you  feel,  do  not  exag- 
gerate. Then  place  a  cross  in  the  space  by  the  Avord  that  you  feel  most 
accurately  describes  your  feelings.    Do  not  answer  questions  5  and  6  at  all. 

As  a  poem  is  read  to  you,  try  to  forget  that  you  are  making  a  test. 
Listen  as  naturally  as  you  can,  and  do  not  strain  to  pay  attention  or  to 
produce  a  mood.  Try  to  forget  yourself  as  much  as  possible  in  listening, 
and,  if  you  prefer,  close  your  eyes.  If  you  are  nervous  and  restless,  for 
example,  do  not  try  to  compose  yourself  or  to  force  yourself  to  pay  atten- 
tion, but  sit  still  and  see  if  the  poetry  will  produce  any  effect. 

At  the  end  of  each  selection  a  rest  of  at  least  thirty  seconds  will  be 
given.  During  this  pause  write  the  number  of  the  last  selection  heard  in 
the  blank  after  the  word  which  describes  the  mood  that  you  then  have.  If 
your  mood  is  unchanged,  put  the  number  in  the  same  blank  space  that  you 
had  written  in  before.  If  the  mood  has  changed  the  number  itself  will 
indicate  it.  For  example,  if  at  the  end  of  selection  No.  4  you  feel  de- 
pressed, put  the  numV)er  4  in  the  blank  opposite  the  word  * '  Depressed. ' ' 
If  after  selection  No.  5  your  mood  is  still  the  same,  then  write  the  number 
5  after  the  4.  If  the  mood  has  changed  to  carefree,  for  example,  put  the 
number  5  in  the  blank  opposite  the  word  "Carefree." 

After  all  selections  for  the  day  have  been  read,  answer  Item  No.  7 
^•y  giving  any  additional  introspections  of  your  mood  changes  during  the 
test  and  by  adding  any  other  comment  you  Avould  like  to  make.  After 
having  finished  everything,  please  sign  a  pledge  to  keep  silent  about  this 
experiment,  as  any  discussion  of  it  outside  of  this  room  may  prevent  others 
from  participating  in  it." 


Randolph-Macon  AVoman's  (V)lle(je  31 

At  the  end  of  the  whole  experiment,  after  all  subjects  had 
completed  all  weekly  sessions,  a  questionnaire  was  submitted 
to  them  concerning  the  meaning  of  the  mood  terms  employed 
and  similar  topics.  One  of  the  modifications  in  our  Mood 
Change  Chart  was  the  provision  of  a  blank  space  for  the  sub- 
ject to  add  any  other  descriptive  mood  terms.  The  Instruc- 
tions and  procedure  for  the  control  group  were  the  same,  but 
the  different  sections  had  only  one  experimental  session. 

The  main  results  of  this  experiment  were  classified  in  such 
a  Avay  that  the  ten  groups  of  poems  ranged  in  the  order  from 
most  to  least  uniform  mood  effects.  Within  each  group  the 
poems  themselves  are  arranged  in  like  manner. 

In  the  first  five  groups  of  poems,  the  same  four  moods  occur 
with  varying  frequency,  namely:  composed,  depressed,  sad, 
and  serious,  and  we  may  speak  of  them  collectively  as  the 
sober  moods.  The  two  groups  of  light  verse  and  humorous 
poems  arouse,  on  the  other  hand,  most  often  the  cheerful 
moods,  such  as  amused,  carefree,  gay,  and  joyful.  The  last 
three  groups  of  poems  give  rise  to  conflicting  moods,  such  as 
carefree,  composed,  exhilarated,  joyful,  serious,  and  the  like. 

As  to  the  individual  poems  which  produce  the  most  uniform 
and  definite  mood  effects,  we  shall  mention  first  those  wiiich 
in  50%  or  more  of  all  subjects  have  aroused  the  same  moods, 
and  arrange  them  again  in  descending  order,  taking  scattering 
of  other  moods  into  account : 

1.  Evelyn  Hope  (Group  C,l)  Prevailing  mood  '*sad" 

2.  A  Prayer   (A,l)   ''serious" 

3.  Little  Giffen   (D,l)    ''sad" 

4.  Annabel  Lee   (C,2)   "sad" 

5.  Limericks    (G,l)    "gay" 

6.  Kathleen  Mavourneen   (C,3)   "sad" 

7.  St.  Agnes  Eve    (A,2)    "serious" 

8.  The  House  by  the  Side  of  the  Road   (A,3)   "serious" 

We  may  perhaps  add  to  this  list  the  following  two : 

9.  Rory  O'More    (F,l)    "gay"  and 
10.  Tears,  Idle   Tears   (H,l)   "sad." 

This  whole  list  of  ten  poems  may,  therefore,  be  considered  the 
first  step  in  the  compilation  of  a  group  of  poems,  classified  on 
the  same  basis  as  Edison's  Mood  Music,  which  may  be  spoken 
of  by  way  of  analog\'  as  "Mood  Poetry."   The  -jiam  reason  why 


32  Bulletin 

these  particular  poems  produce  such  uniform  and  marked  mood 
effects  is  prohal)ly  to  be  found  in  the  nature  and  strength  of 
the  "emotional  tone"  of  the  topics  and  language  involved  in 
them.  This  fact  is  supported  not  only  by  introspective  com- 
ments of  our  subjects  made  especially  in  answer  to  the  last 
(question  of  the  Mood  Change  Chart,  but  it  is  also  borne  out 
by  the  negative  evidence  that  descriptive,  philosophical,  and 
simple  narrative  poems  cause  very  slight  emotional  responses. 

The  large  scattering  of  different  and  sometimes  conflicting 
mood  terms  with  many  poems  of  our  list  is  due  to  several 
causes.  Amongst  these  we  may  list  first  the  subject's  mood 
preceding  the  experiment,  because  sometimes  it  seems  to  exert 
a  marked  influence  on  the  subsequent  mood  reactions  to  the 
poems  heard.  For  example,  a  mood  of  fatigue  may  persist 
throughout  the  whole  session,  or  a  mood  of  nervousness  may 
make  the  subject  feel  "bored"  with  all  the  poems  presented 
at  that  session.  Sometimes  metre  and  rhyme  are  mentioned 
among  the  causes  of  mood  change,  and  sometimes  the  change 
is  attributed  to  associations  aroused  by  a  poem  at  some  earlier 
time.  Again,  if  a  poem  is  too  familiar  to  a  certain  person,  it 
makes  the  listener  bored  or  indifferent.  The  case  of  previous 
associations  with  a  poem  is  illustrated  in  the  effect  of  the  poem 
"Lord  Ullin's  Daughter,"  which  reminded  one  of  our  sub- 
jects of  a  school  declamation,  while  "The  Post  That  Fitted" 
depressed  one  girl  because  she  had  recently  visited  an  epileptic 
colony.  Finally  a  poem  of  slight  emotional  appeal  when  heard 
after  one  of  stronger  emotional  tone  seems  to  be  somewhat 
influenced  by  the  mood  of  the  preceding  poem. 

To  the  14  mood  terms  found  on  the  Edison  Chart  our  sub- 
jects added  "dreamy,"  "bored,"  and  "amused."  According 
to  the  absolute  frequency  with  which  these  17  moods  occurred 
amongst  our  80  subjects,  we  obtain  the  following  rank  order : 

(I)  serious,  637;  (2)  composed,  497;  (3)  sad,  404;  (4)  care- 
free, 272;  (5)  depressed,  252;  (6)  gay,  241;  (7)  joyful,  161; 
(8)  fatigued,  145;   (9)  exhilarated,  125;  (10)  optimistic,  109; 

(II)  amused,  78;  (12)  dreamy,  62;  (13)  nervous,  61;  (14) 
worried,  54;  (15)  bored,  39;  (16)  unfatigued,  32;  and  (17) 
discouraged,  24.  The  order  remains  the  same  if  only  the  first 
group  of  forty  subjects  is  considered.  The  order  is  but  slightly 
changed  if  we  arrange  the  moods  by  the  number  of  subjects 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College  81] 

who  have  experienced  them.  Accordingly  we  find  the  mood 
''serious"  mentioned  by  all  except  one  of  the  first  group  of 
subjects,  next  sad  by  38,  composed  by  36,  carefree  and  de- 
pressed by  34  each,  gay  and  joyful  by  31  each,  exhilarated  by 
27,  optimistic  by  24,  fatigued  by  23,  worried  by  17,  amused  by 
16,  nervous  by  13,  unfatigued  by  11,  discouraged  and  bored 
by  10  each,  and  dreamy  by  7. 

These  results,  then,  have  solved  our  main  problem,  as  they 
indicate  to  what  extent  listening  to  poetry  is  likely  to  produce 
definite  and  uniform  emotional  responses  or  moods, 

A  second  and  minor  aspect  of  our  problem  was  concerned 
with  a  critical  examination  of  the  mood  terminology  employed 
in  the  popular  Edison  Mood  Change  Chart.  In  order  to  obtain 
objective  data  for  this  enquiry  each  of  the  forty  subjects  of 
our  first  group  was  asked  after  the  completion  of  all  experi- 
ments, to  answer  the  following 


QUESTIONNAIRE 

1.  Define  each  of  the  seventeen  mood  terms. 

2.  Which  of  these  terms  mean  to  you  practically  the  same  thing? 

3.  Which  of  these  terms  express  the  strongest  or  deepest  moods  or  feelings? 

4.  Classify  all  mood  terms  into  pleasant,  unpleasant,  and  indifferent. 

5.  Arrange  the  terms  of  the  pleasant  and  unpleasant  group   from  strong- 

est to  weakest. 

6.  Can  you  classify  the  moods  in  any  other  way?    How? 

7.  Arrange  the   following  ten  subjects  in  the  order   in  which  they  arouse 

you  emotionally,  from  strongest  to  weakest: 
athletic  contests   (observed) 
dramatic  performances    (observed) 
fiction   (read) 
landscape   (observed) 
movies   (observed) 
music    (heard) 

original  mental   work    (compositions   or   problem   solving) 
paintings   (observed) 
poetry    (heard) 
traveling  by  rail. 

The  answers  to  most  of  these  questions  were  also  tabulated. 

The  first  question  was  asked  in  order  to  find  out  how  much 
agreement  there  is  among  people  as  to  the  precise  meaning  of 
the  terms  used.  It  is,  of  course,  out  of  the  question  to  enumer- 
ate here  the  different  definitions  offered;  but  a  few  examples 
must  suffice  to  indicate  the  ambiguity  in  these  terms. 


34  Bulletin 

Composed:  Quiet;  calm;  undisturbed,  not  worried,  not  nervous;  one's 
self ;  indifferent ;  firm ;  power  of  mind  to  think  under  any 
circumstances ;  nervousness  in  the  background ;  at  one 's  ease ;  rested ; 
under  control;  carefree  yet  seriou*;  not  affected  in  any  way;  neither  ex- 
tremes  of   pleasantness   nor    unpleasantness. 

Nervous:  Ready  to  lauo^h  at  sadness  and  weep  at  humor;  ''crabby;" 
worried;  excited;  opposite  of  composed;  worked  up  to  an  ex- 
citable state;  not  composed;  nerves  on  edge;  restless;  agitated;  unhappy; 
lacking  self-control ;  irritable ;  tense ;  annoyable ;  unable  to  concentrate ; 
*  *  wrigglesome ;  "   ' '  slightly    fearful ;  "    * '  fidgety ;  "    "  unstrung. ' ' 

Worried:  Troubled;  pondering;  lack  of  attention;  mind  centered  else- 
Avhere;  depressed  and  brooding;  concerned  over  trouble;  ner- 
vous and  agitated;  ill  at  ease;  peace  of  mind  disturbed;  melancholic;  dis- 
tressed and  anxious;  distrustful  and  ill  at  ease;  anxiously  thoughtful;  pre- 
occupied with  an  unpleasant  thought ;  bothered ;  upset ;  oppressed ;  de- 
pressed and   discouraged. 

From  these  samples  it  will  be  seen  that  there  is  much  am- 
biguity in  the  interpretation  of  the  mood  terms.  For  example, 
''serious"  was  taken  to  mean  either  "thoughtful"  or  ''slightly 
sad;"  the  arrangement  of  moods  according  to  opposites  is  un- 
necessarily artificial,  although  several  of  our  subjects  defined 
some  of  the  terms  as  the  opposites  of  others;  but  even  here 
there  was  no  agreement  as  to  what  terms  were  thus  antago- 
nistic. Certainly  the  mood  terms  do  not  show  the  relations  of 
moods  to  each  other  nor  even  the  degree  of  intensity  or 
strength  of  the  moods  designated. 

It  was  found  that  there  is  greatest  uncertainty  in  our  sub- 
jects' minds  concerning  the  precise  meaning  of  the  deepest 
moods  of  both  the  pleasant  and  the  unpleasant  kind;  because 
here  synonymous  terms  are  mentioned  most  frequently.  Thus, 
"depressed"  is  taken  to  be  synonymous  with  "discouraged" 
by  18  subjects,  with  "worried"  by  15,  with  "nervous"  by  1, 
with  "sad"  by  4,  and  with  "serious"  by  1;  only  1  person 
found  no  synonym  for  "depressed."  The  terms  "discour- 
aged" and  "worried"  are  equally  ambiguous,  while  among 
the  pleasant  moods  "exhilarated,"  "joyful,"  and  "gay"  are 
synonymous  to  about  30  out  of  40  subjects.  Likewise  the  term 
"carefree"  is  equivocal.  Several  of  the  terms  are  also  desig- 
nated as  meaning  "indifferent." 

Another  aspect  of  the  am])iguity  of  the  mood  terms  is  re- 
vealed in  the  answers  to  the  third  question.  According  to 
this  result,  "exhilarated,"  "joyful,"  "depressed,"  and 
"sad"  are  most  often   classified  as   the   deepest  or  strongest 


Raxdolph-Macox  Womax's  College  -V^ 

moods,  but  many  of  the  other  terms  are  also  put  into  this 
group  by  from  1  to  10  of  our  subjects,  indicating  a  great  va- 
riety of  interpretations  of  these  terms. 

Perhaps  the  greatest  agreement  occurred  as  to  the  affective 
character  of  the  moods  involved.  The  five  moods  '' depressed," 
''discouraged,"  "worried,"  "nervous,"  and  "sad"  were  uni- 
formly characterized  as  "unpleasant;"  "exhilarated,"  "joy- 
ful," "gay,"  "amused,"  and  "optimistic"  as  "pleasant;"  and 
in  five  others,  namely,  "serious,"  "composed,"  "dreamy," 
"unfatigued,"  and  "carefree,"  there  was  an  almost  even 
division  between  "pleasantness"  and  "indifference,"  The 
moods  "fatigued"  and  "bored"  and  the  synonym  "indiffer- 
ent" were  not  included  in  this  list  because  they  represent, 
according  to  several  explanatory  comments  at  the  end  of  the 
Mood  Change  Charts,  an  attitude  of  inattention  and  non-re- 
ceptiveness  to  poetry,  and  are  thus  not  moods  aroused  by  lis- 
tening to  poetry. 

The  answers  to  the  fifth  question  of  our  Questioannaire  can- 
not very  well  be  tabulated,  since  five  moods  w^ere  classified 
either  as  pleasant  or  as  indifferent.  But  by  taking  the  con- 
sensus of  opinion  as  our  guide  we  have  arranged  the  fifteen 
moods  into  an  affective  scale,  starting  with  the  most  unpleas- 
ant, proceeding  to  the  less  unpleasant,  then  the  mostly  indif- 
ferent or  slightly  pleasant,  then  the  mostly  pleasant  or  rarely 
indifferent,  then  the  uniformly  but  slightly  pleasant  and  end- 
ing with  the  most  pleasant  mood.  The  moods  as  thus  arranged 
fall  into  the  following  order :  depressed,  discouraged,  worried, 
nervous,  sad,  serious,  composed,  dreamy,  unfatigued,  carefree, 
optimistic,  amused,  gay,  joyful,  exhilarated.  In  this  mood 
scale  the  middle  third  may  be  considered  as  either  slightly 
pleasant  or  indifferent,  according  to  the  interpretation  given 
to  the  term;  "serious,"  for  instance,  may  be  understood  as 
"approaching  slight  sadness,"  or  as  "a  faintly  pleasant 
thoughtfulness. "  This  arrangement  in  a  scale  of  moods  is 
necessarily  incomplete  and  uneven.  The  number  of  pleasant 
moods  seems  greater  than  the  unpleasant ;  and  there  is  also 
no  way  of  expressing  the  dift'erences  in  intensity  in  the  con- 
secutive steps.  It  seems  to  us,  however,  a  more  useful  arrange- 
ment than, the  antagonistic  pairs  of  the  Edison  Chart. 


36  Bulletin 

Since  the  answers  to  our  sixth  question  did  not  yield  any 
other  satisfactory  principle  of  classifying:  the  mood  terms,  we 
may  now  revert  to  our  first  question  of  definition  and  attempt 
to  bring  together,  in  the  case  of  each  mood  term,  the  most  fre- 
quent descriptive  phrases  and  synonyms  mentioned  by  our 
subjects,  in  the  hope  that  this  collection,  combined  with  its 
nrrangement  in  a  mood  scale,  may  prove  helpful  to  others 
interested  in  the  study  of  moods. 

MOOD  SCALE 

Depressed:      Extremely    unpleasant    state    of    mental    distress    filled    with 
evil    foreboding   which    makes    one   unresponsive    to    pleasant 
stimuli;   melancholic  and  pessimistic. 

Discouraged:      Very   unpleasant    state    of    despair,   unready   to   make   any 
effort  to   struggle;   hopelessly   downcast. 

Worried:      Pre-occupied     with     an     unpleasant     tliought;     brooding     and 
agitated. 

Nervous:      A   state   of   unpleasant   physical   and   mental   restlessness,   with 
difficulty  to  concentrate  and  readiness  to  be  annoyed  by  trifles. 

Sad:      Inclined   to   gloomy    thoughts;    a   slight    degree   of   depression;    dis- 
turbed by  sorrow. 

Serious:      Concentrating     on     and     interested     in     thoughts     aroused     by 
stimulus ;     earnest,     solemn,     indifferent     or    but     very     faintly 
pleasant    or   unpleasant. 

Composed:      A  calm,  indifferent  or  but  slightly  pleasant  state  of  watchful 
readiness  and  self-control. 

Dreamy:      A    faintly    pleasant    state    of    distracted    attention,    somewhat 
drowsy,   musing,  wistful   and   disinclined   to   action   and  mental 
effort. 

Unfatigued:      A    fairly    pleasant   physical   and   mental   state    of   alertness 
or   readiness  to  mental  or   physical  effort;    fresh   and   ener- 
getic. 

Carefree:      A    pleasant    state    of    irresponsibility,    forgetful    of    troubles, 
light-hearted. 

Optimistic:      Inclined  to  pleasant  thoughts;   hopeful,  cheerful,  and  happy. 

Amused:      Readiness    to   be    pleased    by    trifles;    on    the    look-out    for    the 
humorous,  with  a  tendency  to  smile. 

Gay:      A   state  of  pleasant  light-heartedness  and  mirth,  bordering  on   the 
mischievous    or    frivoluous;    gladness    with    tendency    to    laughter. 


Randolph-Macon  Woman's  College  87 

Joyful:      A  very  pleasant  inner  happiness  with  diffused  and  little  marked 
external    expression;    pre-occupied   with    pleasant    thoughts. 

Exhilarated:      Extremely    pleasant    state    of   excitement   with    marked    ex- 
ternal signs,  such  as  laughter   and   boisterousness;    "pep" 
and  ''thrill;"  buoyant  spirits. 

The  two  other  mood  terms  which  were  employed,  but  which 
we  did  not  incorporate  into  the  mood  scale,  may  be  defined  as 
follows : 

Fatigued:     An   unpleasant   state    of   physical   and    mental   weariness    and 
inability  to  pay  attention  or  to  exert  oneself. 

Bored:      An  indifferent  or  slightly  unpleasant  state  of  passive  annoyance, 
sometimes  to  the  point  of  disgust. 

These  statements  are  not  meant  to  be  concise  logical  defi- 
nitions or  even  accurate  psychological  descriptions  of  the  dif- 
ferent moods.  They  are  merely  an  empirical  collection  of  in- 
terpretations of  the  mood  terms  employed  in  this  experiment, 
intended  to  serve  as  a  possible  starting  point  for  a  fuller 
psychological  investigation  of  moods.  "We  would,  therefore, 
request  any  of  our  readers  who  have  become  interested  in  this 
problem  of  the  effect  of  poetry  on  our  moods,  to  apply  our 
mood  scale  and  our  short  list  of  ten  mood  poems,  to  their  own 
life  and  to  sit  down  in  favorable  moments  of  the  day  and  read 
or  have  somebody  read  to  them  one  or  tw^o  of  these  poems  in 
order  to  write  down  the  effect  upon  their  moods  as  defined  or 
described  in  our  mood  scale.  After  ten  or  more  such  records 
have  been  obtained,  the  Psychological  Laboratory  of  Randolph- 
Macon  Woman's  College,  Lynchburg,  Va.,  would  be  grateful 
to  receive  either  the  original  records  or  exact  copies  of  them 
for  a  continuation  of  this  study.  Further  directions  and  de- 
tails may  be  obtained  from  the  Editor  of  these  psychological 
studies.  He  would  also  gratefully  accept  answers  to  questions 
6  and  7  of  the  Questionnaire  as  well  as  such  details  as  are 
called  for  on  our  Mood  Change  Chart. 

At  present  we  have  not  sufficiently  analyzed  the  answers  to 
the  last  question  of  the  Questionnaire  and  the  possibility  of  re- 
ceiving some  answers  from  our  readers  forbids  us  to  tell  more 
of  the  purpose  of  this  question,  as  this  might  influence  future 
answers. 


38  Bulletin 

To  summarize  our  main  results,  we  may  say  that  certain 
poems  when  read  aloud  produce  definite  and  fairly  uniform 
mood  effects  in  a  large  number  of  people,  and  that  this  effect 
would  liave  become  even  more  uniform  if  the  mood  terms  had 
been  defined  beforehand  so  as  to  be  interpreted  by  everybody 
in  the  same  way.  A  list  of  ten  mood  poems  was  made,  on  the 
basis  of  our  results,  which  is  analogous  to  the  137  records  of 
the  Edison  Mood  Music  in  that  these  poems  will  produce  al- 
most identical  moods  in  the  great  majority  of  persons.  Fac- 
tors which  prevent  perfect  uniformity  in  the  mood  effects  of 
all  poems  are  such  as  pre-existing  moods,  metre  or  rhyme  of 
the  poem,  and  pre-existing  associations  or  emotional  experi- 
ences connected  with  topics  similar  to  those  presented  in  the 
poems.  We  have  also  constructed  an  affective  mood  scale  based 
largely  upon  the  intensity  of  the  pleasantness  or  unpleasant- 
ness of  the  moods  involved.  We  have  furthermore  shown  that 
mood  terms  are  very  ambiguous  and  variously  interpreted  by 
most  people,  and  to  avoid  difficulties  of  definition  we  have  at- 
tempted a  list  of  descriptive  phrases  for  each  of  the  mood 
terms  employed  in  this  experiment. 

In  general  our  experiment  has  only  confirmed  what  every 
lover  of  poetry  has  learned  by  pleasant  experiences,  that  there 
are  moods  for  every  poem  as  well  as  poems  for  every  mood. 
One  knows  beforehand  what  poems  one  "feels"  like  hearing 
or  reading,  just  as  every  lover  of  music  knows  how  he  will  be 
affected  by  this  or  that  musical  selection.  But  if  our  little 
study  has  stimulated  a  new  interest  in  poetry  in  some  of  our 
readers  or  aroused  in  others  a  keener  desire  for  mood  analy- 
sis it  will  have  gained  a  human  value  in  addition  to  whatever 
value  it  may  have  from  the  strictly  scientific  psychological 
point  of  view. 


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